Goal Achievement Hack, Zero Willpower Needed

I committed to run the Melbourne Marathon, but as I looked at my training stats I was appalled. 4 weeks into the 18-week training plan, I did exactly %50 of the training runs I was supposed to.

It’s not that I didn’t know I had to run more days. I just didn’t.

You can say life got in the way.

I had run a Marathon the previous year, but my dating coach life allowed a lot of free time and relatively little pressures.

In 2011, there were a lot more constraints on my time and location. I was working a job, building my online ventures…

Who had time to go for a training run?

Why didn’t I just stick to the plan?

Realistically – I had the time. Time was not the problem.

I had used the same novice runner program the previous year when training for the Marathon. All it took was a commitment to follow the plan to the letter.

Namely, 4 days a week I needed to get my legs going until I clocked the distance the plan specified. Out of those, 1 run (the weekend run usually) was the longer one.

Distances increased weekly and so did weekly running time, but the plan in total took 80 hours to my calculations – or on average, 4 hours of running per week.

Surely I could find the 4 hours per week, I thought?

But the issue wasn’t time management. Rather, it was managing my dedication or my commitment.

I wanted to run the Marathon. But I hadn’t truly committed to it.

Too many days I finished work with running as an afterthought. A hassle.

“I should run but… it’s already dark outside. And it’s getting colder. I just want to have dinner and relax.”

Every time that I let myself miss out on a run, I was killing my Marathon goal.

And it was all too easy to bail out on those training sessions.

So, I decided to sign a commitment contract.

Creating a consequence

Commitment contracts are a simple concept – commit to a behavior and then either reward doing it or punish not doing it.

Despite this simplicity, science has proved their effectiveness over and over. Numerous studies showed that the usage of commitment contracts improved participants abilities to quit cigarettes, stick to a diet or follow an exercise program.

So, to make sure I do my runs, I went to a site dedicated to creating such contracts.

I committed $200 a week to completing my 4 runs according to schedule.

Yup, I gave them my credit card number. Eek.

If I failed, the money would go to a charity I despise – a pro-life charity. I chose that option to give me even more motivation to not fail.

Once a week, an e-mail message would go out to my referee and me, asking whether I completed my training runs.

I picked as a referee a hardcore runner buddy of mine. He wouldn’t accept any excuse unless I was legitimately sick. I specifically asked him for that.

Then I posted it all out on Facebook for the world to see. This made the commitment iron-clad.

Results

To me the results were astonishing. For the remaining 14 weeks, my training completion rate went from %50 to %100. Yes, that means I didn’t miss a single training run. I never had to pay a cent.

Suddenly, running was not an afterthought. It was something I somehow always fit into my schedule – as I would with lunch or a shower. There was simply no way for it not to happen. I wasn’t going to pay some nutcases $200, was I?

Even when I met my long-distance girlfriend for short 3-day weekends, I brought my running shoes and we had scheduled a time to fit in the 2-3 hours long weekend run that was in my training plan.

I’ve shown myself to have grit I never thought I had.

Even when I went to a 2-week trip abroad, I didn’t miss a single run.

I flew back to Melbourne and landed on Sunday at 5pm. I still had a 3-hour run to do by the end of the week. I got home, dropped off my luggage, put my running gear on and went on to run 3 hours in what became the biggest storm of the year.

I was running in the rain for so long, all my fingertips were pruny by the end of it.

It’s not just willpower

I surprised my friends and myself with that kind of resolve in the face of challenge. “You have such willpower!” they said.

And it’s easy to dismiss it as such… But I didn’t feel like it was a matter of willpower at all.

Willpower by itself wasn’t enough to get me to do my runs in the first month of training.

It was now an easier decision to make. There was no way I would pay $200 to avoid a run. Why would I want to avoid a run? I was going to run the Marathon. The script in my head completely flipped.

I ran the Melbourne Marathon that year. In fact, I felt so confident in my training that I ran 2 more marathons in the 2 months after it.

How I quit smoking

Another commitment contract has helped me quit smoking. If I smoke a single cigarette I have to pay $2000. (!!)
That contract is still going on today. I let it expire twice before to see if I could just bank on my acquired willpower or habit. I found the both times, I got tempted to try “just one cigarette”, which led to many many more.

Not having immediate negative consequences is a pretty wild thing. But right now, even at my most intoxicated, I never even consider smoking a cigarette. No cigarette is worth $2000.

It’s been 1.5 years since I smoked my last cigarette. I renew that commitment contract every 6 months. Maybe I haven’t found the “power within” to quit, but I got the right results – I quit a nasty, unhealthy habit.

To me, in this case, results are more important than virtue.

Writing

In a very meta kind of way, this article is being written after I took on a challenge to write 10 articles by the end of November 2014.

Writing this second article out of the 10 became harder after the first one ended up being a very impactful post that got a lot of great feedback. Hard act to follow. But hey – two days later – and here we are.

A commitment contract is a commitment contract. I don’t intend to lose those $100.

Quick guide to commitment contracts

1. Go on a commitment contract website like gofuckingdoit.com (other options are the slightly more complex stickk.com, or the infinitely more complex beeminder.com)
2. Create your goal. Make sure that the goal is worded in action words, and is dependent on your own input rather than results (I will exercise for 10 minutes a day rather than I will lose 5 kg).
3. Pick a time period to do achieve your goal. On stickk.com you’ll have weekly check-ins. On gofuckingdoit, only 1 e-mail would be sent at the end of the commitment period.
4. Attach a sum of money to it. It’s better if it’s a sum of money that you can afford, but is SCARY to you. That, of course, depends on your financial situation.
5. At this point you’ll be required to give your credit card to the site.That point will make you even slightly more uncomfortable. That’s a good sign. It means you’re really committing to something.
6. If you’re now realizing the commitment is too much, good! Perhaps you have a tendency to make overly ambitious commitments and that’s why you failed before. Commit to an easier version. A step in the right direction is good enough.
7. Set a referee. Make sure this is someone who you wouldn’t lie to, and who would definitely charge you the money. Blocking your ability to worm away from your commitment will matter a lot.
8. Post your commitment on Facebook. Gofuckingdoit.com and stickk.com give you an option to do it straight from their interface. Use it. It’s been shown over and over that people are way more likely to realize goals that they’ve committed to publicly.
9. If all the above was done right, you will notice a weird feeling. A weird extra energy coursing through your being. A conviction that this time, this goal is going to get done.

Conclusion

I hope this (ehm) 1 weird trick helps you to create positive change in your life.

If you haven’t done anything like it before – try it. Choose a persistently tricky goal, pick the right action to do and set the right terms.

I’ve seen other people I’ve recommended it to succeed with goals that beforehand eluded them, the kind that really pushed them outside of their comfort zones.

Let me know what you think about commitment contracts in the comments below, or ask questions if you have them.

And… Good luck with achieving your goals!